The big picture: Streaming took 48% of ad-supported TV time in 2026-Q2, up from 45% a year ago. In the same quarter, the share of all TV that carries ads fell to 72% from 74%.

Why it matters: Ad money follows ad time. Streaming is winning the ad-supported market. The ad-supported market got smaller this quarter, but I believe that is a temporary blip.

Let's break it down into 5 big questions:
1) How much TV time has ads?
2) How much of TV ad impressions come from streaming?
3) Why is streaming's share of impressions so much smaller than its share of time?
4) What needs to change for streaming to take the lead?
5) What does TV look like in 2035?

Total TV time (Nielsen):
1) Ad-supported - 72%
2) Ad-free - 28%

Year over year, ad-supported slipped 2%, from 74% to 72%.

Ad-supported total TV time:
1) Linear - 52% (↓ 5%)
2) Streaming - 48% (↑ 6%)

Quick math on share of TV time: 
1) 37% is ad-supported linear
2) 34% is ad-supported streaming
3) 20% is ad-free streaming
4) 8% is ad-free linear

YoY growth rate:
1) Ad-free streaming - ↑ 16%
2) Ad-supported streaming - ↑ 3%
3) Ad-free linear - ↓ 7%
4) Ad-supported linear - ↓ 8%

Counter narrative: Ad-free streaming was the fastest-growing category. It accounted for 71% of streaming's growth in Q2.

Bottom line: Streaming took nearly three points off linear this year. All of it came from cable.

Streaming will capture 30% of TV ad impressions in 2026, up from 22% last year.

Streaming share of TV ad impressions:
1) 2025 - 22%
2) 2030 - 50%

Why it matters: Streaming has almost half the ad-supported time and less than a third of the ad impressions. That gap is the whole ballgame.

Next step: Streaming could pass linear TV for total ad-supported time as early as next year. At that point, the difference in ad impressions would come purely from streaming's lower ad load.

Flashback: Streaming's Ad Takeover Is Ahead of Schedule

Ad load. Linear TV runs about 2.5X more ads per hour.

Ad minutes per hour:
1) Linear TV - 13.2 (↑ 0.6%)
2) Streaming TV - 5.0 (↑ 33%)

Why it matters: Linear sells more ads inside less time. That is the only reason its impression lead survives.

It already is. Streaming is improving on the same factors that once protected linear, all at the same time.

Over the next five years, streaming ad impressions will grow 127%.

Growth for streaming (2025-30):
1) % of ad time - ↑ 27%
2) % of time with ads - ↑ 22%
3) % of ad-supported time - ↑ 40%
4) Ad load/hour - ↑ 56%
5) % of ad impressions - ↑ 127%

By 2035, 80% of streaming minutes will carry ads.

Change in overall ad impressions (2025-30):
1) Streaming TV - ↑ 170%
2) Linear TV - ↓ 23%
3) Convergent TV - ↑ 19%

Ad load by network (Ampere):
1) Paramount+ - 9m
2) Hulu - 8m
3) Disney+ - 8m
4) Pluto TV - 7m
5) Peacock - 5m
6) HBO Max - 4m
7) Tubi - 3m
8) Prime Video - 3m
9) Netflix - 3m

Interesting: Linear-native networks are much more aggressive with their ad loads than their streaming-native counterparts.

Surprise #1: In six months, streaming ad loads grew by ≈ 19%, a faster pace than the 25% I projected for the entire year.

Surprise #2: The companies with the highest ad load are not the companies most dependent on streaming ad revenue. Peacock earns 45% of its revenue from advertising and sits in the middle for ad load at 4.7 minutes. Paramount+ runs nearly twice the load for half the revenue share.

Flashback: O Captain, My Captain.

Flashback: Streaming’s New Scoreboard - Scale vs. Profit

Share of TV in 2035:
1) Ad-supported streaming - 55%
2) Ad-supported linear - 27%
3) Ad-free streaming - 14%
4) Ad-free linear - 4%